Election Monitoring and Human Rights

As the 1997 parliamentary elections in Indonesia approach, the political atmosphere has begun to heat up and civil liberties are deteriorating. Since the first such election under the “New Order” government of President Soeharto in 1971, they have never been the “democratic festival” that the government would have both outsiders and its own citizens believe. With the army, civil servants and workers in state enterprises effectively required to vote for the ruling party, Golkar, a Golkar victory is not in doubt. But the recent and unusually blatant attempts by the government to silence or punish political dissent suggest it is worried that the 1997 elections may be more of a contest—or at least more of a vehicle for political protest—than previously.